Darkest Pasts and Brightest Futures
by starryluminara
Summary: The Shepherds work their hardest. Vainly, in a dying land, they struggle to prove that normality can be held, that love exists, that things can and will get better. Watch as they face the odds and tempt fate, striving for bright futures while putting their dark pasts behind them. (Focuses on a Tharja/Gaius/Noire family dynamic).
1. Birth

Tharja held the tiny quivering child in her arms, and stared with a look that a stranger would define as indifferent. But nothing was farther from the truth. She was enraptured; the tiny smile tugging at her lips was proof of it. Gaius had seen it once or twice, but never as strong as this. Taking his leave, figuring she needed a break, he walked a short distance before turning around. He was wary to leave her defenseless but knew that even in this state, Tharja could tackle anything that managed to disturb her. Risen, beast, or otherwise. She said nothing as he left, noting it only by leaning back further into the pillow that propped against her back, her violet eyes still fixated on the infant in her arms.

The camp was deathly silent and Tharja let out a low giggle, both amused and pleased to know that she had the power to make the entire camp hush. It wouldn't be a surprise if Chrom had ordered the whole of the camp to make not a single sound, likely to the chagrin of Gaius, her dear husband. She could still see the pallor on Gaius' face when she had woken the entire camp up with screams that could only be described as the last pained bellows before an agonozing death.

But Tharja had survived. It was in her blood and she was sure that it was also in the blood of the child that she had carried for nine devastating months and who was finally born on this chilling fall morning. She ran a finger along the thin and fragile forehead of her child. Still pink and fuzzy, Tharja could see a few sprouts of red locks digging through her fine scalp. A pocket of freckles dotted her child's body and round cheeks. She squeezed the baby ever closer to her chest, desperate to feel the warmth radiating from inside her and to match it in her own chest.

Tharja had never dreamed she would be a mother. She didn't have the matronly glow or feminine kindness that poems and ballads spoke of. Even now, she wasn't sure she was ready. Scowling, she thought of her own miserable childhood. Black magic, lashes and cruel words, all distant memories yet still steeled in the dark confines of her past. She could make things different for this child.

Then the realization hit her; No, she couldn't. To do so would mean to sacrifice herself, and quite possibly, the future of her child. Leave the other mothers to tender embraces and affectionate tones. Her child would be raised with the same disregard for benevolence and clemency that she had been. No, her child would be strong, stronger than even herself. The last thing this crumbling world needed was another weak and submissive girl. Oh no, Tharja would be sure that her child knew the darkness and knew how to contort it to her wishes. It was essential to her survival. This child would do great things.

She gripped her child's miniscule hand with tense fingers. Resolutely, she stared into the slowly opening eyes of the child.

"...Noire."

Noire's sticky caramel eyes gazed in gentle recognition of her mother. Her tiny lips curved into the same tiny smile that was roughly etched onto Tharja's pale face. Tharja took this as a sign that she understood and accepted the burden of this name. Something akin to pride swelled in her heart at this cognizance. Whether or not Noire understood her mother's words was not clear, but the very resonance of her mother's voice brought up bleak images of that which she could not yet imagine, which she greeted with a tearful entreat.

Tharja peaked harder into the tearful pools of her daughter, wiping each tear away, and slowly saw the black future, plain and clear. Death, destruction, blackness all-reaching. Such visions would shake any other, but Tharja laughed at them, kissing each cheek and each tear away.


	2. Baby's First Hex

_This wont do at all, no not a single bit._ A frown akin to a pout tugged on the dark mage's features. Tharja peered over the makeshift crib in their lonely tent, deciding and planning with the expression of one rushing to a funeral, someone arriving late to kiss the dead goodbye forever. A flick of interest, the slightest twitch of a finger and the decision was made. Her hands snatched up the baby in the tiny crib and gripped her closer.

Cursing under her breath as she trudged through the thin blanket of ice and slush coating the ground, she swaddled the child tighter, grateful that the child hadn't awoken from the cold. Perhaps this babe, her darkness, was defective, doomed to never feel pain and in turn never feel ecstasy? It was a silly irrational fear and yet no sooner had the thought occurred then Tharja cold fingers went to sharply pinch the warm cheek of Noire. Not enough pressure to draw blood but just enough to see the skin blemish almost as red as the babe's thin tufts of hair. The sound of her child crying brought a thin smile to her face. _Of course_ Noire was able to feel pain, how else would she learn to _inflict_ it? Her child, her _Noire_ was going to live a painful and joyful life - but precautions had to be taken, they always had to be.

_Best to do it when everyone else is sleeping_, she thought, _but not too long after the moon has vanished_. Not that she needed the moonlight; the ingredients necessary had already been prepared in advanced as a precaution. Precautions always had to be taken. _Always_. In-between midnight and dawn, less than 28 days after Noire's birth, at the first opportunity of a waning moon. The waning moon: most useful for banishment of darkness, negativity, and hexes. The instruments had been charged, the camp was asleep, the child (still warm, not too cold, awake and crying) procured, and now Tharja was walking, slowly melting into the glade a short distance away from camp.

Bouncing the babe as she walked onwards, trying to silence the tears that resulted from her test, Tharja felt a tugging in her heart. Did she care if the camp woke up? No, not really. After all, the camp was already used to the tearful and fussy screams of infant and toddler Severa. Running the side of her finger along Noire's cheeks, she was suddenly reminded of Gaius and his cheeks. Truth be told, if she had been blind and had to distinguish Gaius' and Noire's faces in the dark, ruminating over the abstract shapes and indistinct colors she probably couldn't be able to even with all the black magic she possessed. (No, she wasn't wishing he was here for this.)

But was it Noire that resembled Gaius or Gaius that resembled Noire? It felt the longer he stayed with her the more he changed. The smell of baby powder and pressed flowers, a serenity that could make her barf. But Noire - if she kissed her thin lips right now, she was positive it would taste like chocolate. It was as if Gaius was slowly being dulled by Noire, like a bone being wittled by a knife and then in turn the bone whittling the knife. Her edges were sharpened by his being dulled and Tharja refused to see the changes in herself but knew that some in the camp had noticed. Peering over her spell book at lunch the other day, Ricken commented on how happy she had been the last few weeks and Tharja had merely smirked, folding the page to her grimoire while casting a weak lip sealing hex. _Lost: Ricken's expressions, last seen near Tharja at around lunchtime, if found please do not give them back, signed Tharja._

But still, there was no denying it, this child was already doing great wonders and great wonders had to be protected.

She got to work. Kneeling. Tome in hand, fluttered and rapid breaths as she focused her energies, as she focused her feelings, the ones people thought she didn't have, the ones she always struggled to contain. Tharja began to chant to herself, just loud enough for the infant to hear. Every so often the child would stir, wiggling its arms around and looking blindly at the surroundings, and every so often Tharja's eyes would dart from her work, to the child, to behind her, trying to ascertain what the child was seeing that she was not seeing.

As she worked, orange started burning its way into her brain and she willed it to change to red, to dull gray, and then black. She smells him before she hears his footsteps or feels the air leaving his lungs and out of the mouth that she kissed sweetly at times and rougher at other times. His nimble fingers rest on her shoulder without a sound and she doesn't stir.

"What do you want, can't you see I'm busy?" The words leave her mouth with distaste but the thin smile pulling at her lips deceives her.

He doesn't need to see her face to know that she isn't really angry, he's learned to read the smiles in the subtle inflections of her dark voice.

"I thought you might like some company," he kneels down besides her, his hand and shoulder now draped over her. "And I missed you."

Tharja's cheeks burn from the cold and his breath. The tome closes. The child looks up innocently.

"Spill it. You don't trust me ? You probably think I'm hurting her, don't you?" Tharja asks, her words sharply dipped in suspicion and anger.

"Woah there Sunshine ? I'm not accusing you of anything. I really meant what I said," His smile falters as he explains, "I just woke up cold. Couldn't see you or the little one. I didn't want to lose either of you" The man who has already lost a family before bitterly leans down to gather the child in his arms, whose weary countenance melts at being held. " Especially not you, who I've just barely met. I haven't even taught you about the best types of candy or spoiled you rotten."

Tharja feels her insides stir with something akin to desire but much stronger.

"Then you understand what I am doing. Why I am doing this." Wrapping her hands along the ones of her husband, the strong hands that held their child up, the hands that saved her and others daily, the hands that stole many things, most notably her own heart, Tharja gripped them all the more tighter, drawing strength. " No one must hurt her," she insisted. " _No one_."

"No one will hurt her," he promised. "With your magic and my sword, _nothing_ is even capable of denying our baby her spot in the world."

A tiny tenderness enters the world in that moment. "... So mote it be then,"

And with those words, she kissed him and felt married to him again, with Noire as their witness and the hex now complete. Till death do us part? _No_. Till our souls do depart and even after that and that and that.

They walked home. Noire resting in her father's arms and Tharja leading the way. Gaius placed Noire in her crib, and Tharja undressed, the feelings of earlier still ruminating in her mind.

_I want you in loud laughter and bright mornings_, she thought.  
_I want the dark chocolate curve of your smile,_  
_as you love the blood that drips from my lips. _  
_ Kissing you. Staining you. _  
_ Tattoos and pink stains on our walls. _  
_ Spilling._  
_ Me into you and you into me and it overflows_  
_ flowing out of our little tent and into the huge world _  
_ in a laugh that sounds a lot like a _  
_ scream._

Gaius was peeling his socks off. Tharja's head was drawing towards the pillow. He shuffled closer to her tiny body and gathered the blankets over the two of them as they slept. For the first time in a long time, his dreams were not of darkness devouring restlessness and worry in one bite but filled of soft ice creamed wishes, floating carousel music, and tempting caramel. And as he closed his eyes his visions were gentle and reassuring and his oneness with his wife and child was so strong that he smiled with the knowing that they were going to be alright.


End file.
